Frozen Waltz
by GEOZZSTEVENZZ
Summary: Crystal Throne One-Shot: The turning point in Kal Lor Van and his daughter's strained relationship, from her point of view. An offshoot of the 'Crystal Empire' Marvel/DC xover. One-shot . Warning: Grey, morally ambiguous Kal-El "Lor Van" . Non-canon.


Disclaimer: I'm not making any money from this and Superman doesn't belong to me.

Authors Alert: This story and its progenitor is AU and feature a grey, morally ambiguous Kal-el. His actions align only to his own goals.

**Frozen Waltz**

My guardian had never truly been comfortable with me; at least not before that day. As a result, I'd always felt like I'd somehow been hoisted onto him. And the distance between us had only been magnified by my inevitable discovery of his- otherness.

Not one of my best moments in retrospect.

Finding out the person adopting you is not quite human is never an easy pill to swallow, especially if you happen to be eleven years old. The event hadn't boded well for my childish dreams, as all sorts of shadowy faceless things came to infest my nights after that.

Once, I'd even gone as far as attempting to run away from it all, screaming to the world that Lor Van was not my father, but a monster.

I only got as far as the gate.

Come to think of it now, I think Lor Van probably let me run all that way in the hopes that I could wear myself out. Our front gate is four miles out.

In the end he'd just materialized by my side, and, ignoring my exhausted curses, picked me up with deceptive gentleness and taken me back to the manor. I'd like to say that we made up shortly after that, but we didn't.

It was a long time before I could so much as let him within arm's length without screaming bloody murder.

So, no, my guardian and I were not close back in those days. Not for some time at least.

I kept to myself mostly, talking only to the occasional visitor, and from time to time, Rahid and his horses. Lor Van, on his end, avoided me like the plague, keeping our few interactions as polite and as civil as possible. If anyone noticed the tension between us, they were wise and cautious enough to keep it to themselves.

And that's how my life at home had been in those earlier years; quiet, lonely and tense.

The only thing that kept me from death by boredom was the stables. Kal has a thing for ranches, God knows I'd never seen him ride any of the fine equestrians, but he has dozens of ranches worldwide, rearing the finest bred mounts money can buy. At first, I thought he'd wanted to add derbies to his already extensive business empire before I eventually figured it out.

Horses are the only animals that don't react violently to his presence.

Don't mistake me for an ungrateful brat. I'm not. I appreciate my good fortune, and realize just how good I have it considering the alternative if he hadn't taken me in.

He saved my life in more ways than one. And I'm not talking about the radiation poisoning.

I mean, what wasn't there to love about home? The endless fields of grass and bluebells, the private lake, the stable; I daresay, we had it all. Not many teens could say they rode a different horse every day of their lives.

We may not have been the best of friends, but he did try his best the only way he knew how; money.

Rahid once told me that he would stay up watching television and reading magazines trying to find out what teenage girls liked. What was in and what wasn't. Research conducted before purchasing ludicrous amounts of merchandise, hoping to endear me to him. He'd meant to incite my guilty conscience. It had worked.

I may have been unforgiving, but I wasn't completely heartless.

Then came charity ball and everything changed.

I still remember every detail of that evening. Whether that arose from the significance borne from the moment or from what I'd eventually become, hardly matters anymore.

I was fourteen at the time, having lived with Kal for about two years. Our interactions had grown more civil with time, mostly due to Rahid and Amelia's ceaseless reconciliatory efforts: they were the only people my guardian ever took advice from.

I'd just ridden in from an hour long ride on one of the newer horses. Kal had flown them in the evening before from one of his Australian ranches. I was watching the sun set behind the shimmering waters of the lake; one of my personal indulgences.

As usual, I'd not heard his approach until he was a few feet behind me, the soft breeze that usually announced his unnatural movement blowing some of my hair into my eyes. The crunching steps that followed were more for my benefit than his.

"There will be a charity ball in the city tonight. You're to be in attendance."

There was always a charity ball in the city, and I was always being invited. I couldn't care less for them since Kal never let me go. He called it 'unnecessary risk'. I called him kill joy.

"Rahid is preparing the car for you."

Opting not to show my surprise, I nodded, wondering what had gotten into him.

"I don't think I need to emphasize that you act responsibly, and that your security-"

I cut him off."No, you don't."

He gave a small indulgent snort at my interruption.

We stood in silence for a few minutes after that, each of us retreating into our own thoughts. A seemingly father daughter moment; both of us enjoying the setting sun by the sparkling lake.

Kal had always tried to keep his otherness under wraps for as long as I was in the same room as him, even imitating human behavior in a bid to keep me comfortable. Once or twice I'd even caught him blinking.

In those days, if I'd been asked what, if anything, I found strange about my guardian, I could have only pointed out the little things. Like how he never seemed to sit down. Or at times, he turned his head a little too quickly. Or when he wouldn't blink for minutes on end.

In fact, the only blatantly non-human thing I'd ever caught him doing was on the day I'd tried to run away from home. I'd wandered into the woods in one of my more explorative moods and found him changing something on one of the Guardian jets that hovered invisibly over our estate.

He'd been holding up the massive aircraft with one hand like one would a book. The sight had almost fractured my mind. As a result, Kal tended to keep all things abnormal under wraps around me. I see now how that could have contributed to our not getting along; asking him to keep on hiding even within the confines of his own home.

That said, my initial surprise as we stood by the lake was quite understandable, given the precedence.

Ever calm, he'd proceeded to step onto the lake. He didn't sink, blatantly defying the laws of physics by floating, or hovering, or whatever it is he was doing to keep from disturbing the glassy surface beneath his feet.

I watched him stroll away, too shocked to do anything else. He stopped a couple of feet away from me before turning around. He caught me gawking at his antics and smiled loosely, apparently satisfied. He turned back to the setting sun, taking in an audible breath of the warm spring time air.

He exhaled.

I don't know what it was that I had expected, but it wasn't the lake taking on a pearly fogged up appearance as it froze concentrically around him with every second he blew. I could hear the crackling of the ice as it stretched out towards my side of the shore, stilling the lapping water as it yawned its way towards me.

It took everything in me not to take off in hysterics. I would later learn that my apparent bravery had won me quite a few of points in Kal's favor.

"Come." He held his hand out to me in invitation.

Suspension of logic- that's the only explanation I can give as to why I obeyed. Where normally I would have backed away, I decided to step onto the surprisingly solid ice, thanking my luck stars that I still had my riding shoes on.

Clip clop clip clop. I turned around at the sound. My horse had decided to follow me onto the lake, thinking nothing of the absurdity of it all. For some reason his company made me feel safer.

I reached out to rub his neck reassuringly as I finally made it to Kal's side, looking up into his unflappable gaze.

I stiffened for a second as he took my right hand in his, pulling me away from the horse nuzzling my shoulder.

"I have learnt that is customary for a father to teach his daughter to dance. This being the case-" On cue, soft ballroom music floated down around us from an invisible source. The question must have shown on my face coz he muttered, "Guardian."

"Oh," I mumbled intelligently, adjusting my posture as instructed.

And so it was, that with me standing on his feet and my trusty horse as our audience, Kal taught me the waltz. We'd drifted and glided across the shimmering floor, enjoying the sun's last golden embrace, and sharing our first laugh as father and daughter.

A Waltz frozen in time.


End file.
